Publications
Military and Strategic Affairs, Volume 3, No. 3, December 2011

This article aims to provide a balanced picture of the phenomenon of cyberwar. It will show how and why the meaning of “cyberwar” has evolved from the narrow conception referring exclusively to military interaction to its broad meaning, which has become detached from “war” and encompasses almost every activity linked to the aggressive use of computers. In particular, it will distinguish between different forms of cyber conflict in order to lay the ground for a levelheaded threat assessment. It further shows that there is probably less change and more persistence in the cyber threat debate at large than is currently acknowledged. The threat image has been quite solid since the late 1990s, and Stuxnet has not changed this to any substantial degree. The same can be said for the countermeasures that are planned or envisaged.